I suggest that for balancing, as the technologies progress they should be much harder to process, so that, as time goes on 1 science pack per second requires more and more labs to process. I also suggest that the power requirement for later science should be MUCH greater. When processing any given technology, the processing speed and power requirement should be defined by the highest science pack required for that technology.
e.g. (for explanation only, actual ratios at developer discretion obviously)
red science - 1 science pack processes in 1 lab in 10 seconds using 10kw (10 labs required to process 1 science pack per second)
green science - 1 science pack processes in 1 lab in 30 seconds using 100kw (30 labs required to process 1 science pack per second)
note - this means that you will have excess red science pack production unless you increase the number of labs.
grey science - 1 science pack processes in 1 lab in 2 minutes using 1Mw (120 labs required to process 1 science pack per second)
... you get the idea, I am sure. .... white science will require vast areas of labs in order to process one science pack per second.
Later science should be much harder to process
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
This actually kind of happens. Labs have three major ingredient attributes:
- The base recipe. Usually this is 1x of an assortment of colors, but some recipes can consume pairs of potions as well.
- The recipe multiplier. This is the big "x100" on the research screen, you need this many base recipes to finish. Note that if a recipe uses a pair of potions then you will need 2x the main number of actual potions.
- The recipe timer. The number near the clock icon on the research screen, how long each recipe needs to process. Most recipes tend to be around 30seconds, but early recipes can be 10seconds and later recipes can hit 60s per recipe.
So I take it the basic idea is to bump up the recipe timer for later game recipes? I'm not against that. Science labs gain a very large speed increase from lab research. Late game labs can be pretty hungry beasts as they burn through recipes quickly, and the individual recipes are pretty large to begin with.
- The base recipe. Usually this is 1x of an assortment of colors, but some recipes can consume pairs of potions as well.
- The recipe multiplier. This is the big "x100" on the research screen, you need this many base recipes to finish. Note that if a recipe uses a pair of potions then you will need 2x the main number of actual potions.
- The recipe timer. The number near the clock icon on the research screen, how long each recipe needs to process. Most recipes tend to be around 30seconds, but early recipes can be 10seconds and later recipes can hit 60s per recipe.
So I take it the basic idea is to bump up the recipe timer for later game recipes? I'm not against that. Science labs gain a very large speed increase from lab research. Late game labs can be pretty hungry beasts as they burn through recipes quickly, and the individual recipes are pretty large to begin with.
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
I agree that it happens to an extent, but as you noted, the tech advances mitigate much of that. What I propose is somewhere in the region of an order of magnitude (or at least very significant) decrease in processing speed and a MASSIVE increase in power requirement ... it forces you to build more science and power to maintain the science processing rate.
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
Just try researching some of the infinite techs. It doesn't take long to need a million of each science pack to get some of the advances. I think this satisfies in principle what you are referring to. On my testing map, that has hundreds of labs running with speed modules supplied by infinite chests, it still takes forever to get another level of bot speed. If one was to try to make this much production without cheats it would take a Cray to run a hosting server.
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
Hello,
The idea in the first view look good to me, when thinkin a bit much about the application : i already got hard time to know how many labs i need each step of my game.
Also the multiplier is maybe a "complex" mechanic for new player when he will try to figure the lab consumption in addition with the actual difficulty (consisting using calculator, make the solve myself is tricky). Keeping your idea in mind, i got another version :
The first multiplier is for the number of science pack inside the lab actually in use:
for a red science only : x1
for a research with 4 science pack : x4 etc..
The other multiplier is the inversion of the time lenght of the research, the more the science pack are consume slowly (hard research are generally slow), the more it consumes energy (it seems wierd like that, but the result is the more we go into late game, the more labs need energy)
Thank you for makin interesting suggestion to give the game more details and complexity.
The idea in the first view look good to me, when thinkin a bit much about the application : i already got hard time to know how many labs i need each step of my game.
Also the multiplier is maybe a "complex" mechanic for new player when he will try to figure the lab consumption in addition with the actual difficulty (consisting using calculator, make the solve myself is tricky). Keeping your idea in mind, i got another version :
The first multiplier is for the number of science pack inside the lab actually in use:
for a red science only : x1
for a research with 4 science pack : x4 etc..
The other multiplier is the inversion of the time lenght of the research, the more the science pack are consume slowly (hard research are generally slow), the more it consumes energy (it seems wierd like that, but the result is the more we go into late game, the more labs need energy)
Thank you for makin interesting suggestion to give the game more details and complexity.
It should be add in the game: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=67650 
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BlueTemplar
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Re: Later science should be much harder to process
This could probably be achieved by increasing both the science packs that the recipes give, and the science packs required for research ?
(Well, if you increase them too much, you might run into limits for belt/inserter speeds...)
(Well, if you increase them too much, you might run into limits for belt/inserter speeds...)
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
Hi Blue,
My suggestion is not to require more science packs, but simply that processing them takes longer and uses MUCH more energy. I don't want to force the player to have to build red science, them more red science, then more red science ..... as once you have built the factory it is just blueprinting.
I want the player to end up having to find ways to build more expansive lab networks and finally have to struggle to build enough nuclear processing to feed the power requirements.
high-level q
Build red/green factory producing x red+green science packs per second and basic power production. small number of labs required (approx 5 for red and 25 for green, in order to process 1 science pack per second)
Build grey/blue factory producing x grey/blue science packs per second .... struggle to build sufficient coal/solar power while setting up nuclear power. Labs must be massively expanded to be able to process the x packs per second.
Build Purple science and have to set up kovarex processing to support large reactor set-ups. many additional labs required to process at the desired rate
Build Yellow science and have to build massive reactor / uranium processing set-ups.
Build Rocket and if processing white science ... multiple uranium patches required to support uranium processing and vast lab arrays.
This would, i hope, make the later game a more multi-faceted problem. To me the early game is more of a challenge as there is so much to be built to support different aspects of production. the later game, once you have nuclear demands much less of the player beyond knowing how to set up purple/yellow science factories.
My suggestion is not to require more science packs, but simply that processing them takes longer and uses MUCH more energy. I don't want to force the player to have to build red science, them more red science, then more red science ..... as once you have built the factory it is just blueprinting.
I want the player to end up having to find ways to build more expansive lab networks and finally have to struggle to build enough nuclear processing to feed the power requirements.
high-level q
Build red/green factory producing x red+green science packs per second and basic power production. small number of labs required (approx 5 for red and 25 for green, in order to process 1 science pack per second)
Build grey/blue factory producing x grey/blue science packs per second .... struggle to build sufficient coal/solar power while setting up nuclear power. Labs must be massively expanded to be able to process the x packs per second.
Build Purple science and have to set up kovarex processing to support large reactor set-ups. many additional labs required to process at the desired rate
Build Yellow science and have to build massive reactor / uranium processing set-ups.
Build Rocket and if processing white science ... multiple uranium patches required to support uranium processing and vast lab arrays.
This would, i hope, make the later game a more multi-faceted problem. To me the early game is more of a challenge as there is so much to be built to support different aspects of production. the later game, once you have nuclear demands much less of the player beyond knowing how to set up purple/yellow science factories.
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BlueTemplar
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Re: Later science should be much harder to process
(With emphasis.)BlueTemplar wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:48 pm This could probably be achieved by increasing both the science packs that the recipes give, and the science packs required for research ?
(Well, if you increase them too much, you might run into limits for belt/inserter speeds...)
The number of science assemblers would stay the same. Processing the increased amount of packs though would "take longer and use MUCH more energy".
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
Currently research can't take much more energy because the base lab consumption is merely 60kW at all points in the game. In early red/green tier there's nothing wrong with 60kW, but later on you can process all flavors of science at +250% speed and it still takes 60kW.
There are several potential approaches to this change.
- Tiered research labs, a solution done in many mods. For example the first tier lab can only process red/green and uses 60kW. Second tier increases options to military/blue research and takes more energy (200kW?), while max tier can do everything for high energy (600kW?). In that way the highest tier research takes the most energy.
- Research duration changes. Total energy consumption is based on how long research takes so a research that takes 5 seconds per pack will only need 300kJ to process, while a research that takes 120 seconds per pack needs 7.2MJ.
- Increased lab energy use with research. Lasers use more energy when they get the fire speed upgrade, so this would be a similar deal. +250% research speed comes with +250% energy drain, increasing 60kW to 210kW.
There's probably other solutions as well, but those are the most obvious ones I can see.
There are several potential approaches to this change.
- Tiered research labs, a solution done in many mods. For example the first tier lab can only process red/green and uses 60kW. Second tier increases options to military/blue research and takes more energy (200kW?), while max tier can do everything for high energy (600kW?). In that way the highest tier research takes the most energy.
- Research duration changes. Total energy consumption is based on how long research takes so a research that takes 5 seconds per pack will only need 300kJ to process, while a research that takes 120 seconds per pack needs 7.2MJ.
- Increased lab energy use with research. Lasers use more energy when they get the fire speed upgrade, so this would be a similar deal. +250% research speed comes with +250% energy drain, increasing 60kW to 210kW.
There's probably other solutions as well, but those are the most obvious ones I can see.
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
What about just nerfing the research speed upgrades (and their costs)? If the bonuses went 10%,15%,20%,25%,30%,30% then things would start to look quite different at the top end.
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phi Seeker
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Re: Later science should be much harder to process
The idea may be interesting but:
- To produce 90 science per minute, which find decently sized base takes up 8.4 of tier 3 assemblers for yellow and purple science and 14.4 assemblers for blue science
https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.htm ... lSv37zAQ==
- To consume 90 science per minute it takes 25.71 labs without any modules and 36.73 labs with productivity modules (any tier) with max lab research speed
https://codepen.io/Tickthokk/full/NBbKPZ/
I would argue that the number of labs seems to be already quite high compared to number of assemblers needed to craft the science and to just need more seems really unnecessary
The point about power consumption seems quite accurate though, 250% research speed should probably cause 250% increased drain, however in the endgame one should have big enough power supply and I would call it a minor concern - for example difference for 36 labs would be 5400kW
To have the amount of power for labs to be way bigger than that seems to me also unnecessary. Also it would be quite annoying when you would try to build a megabase because there is already mechanic that is causing a lot of energy consumption and that are beacons with modules - they eat insane amount of energy.
However to have more tiers of labs which could be more expensive and more power hungry and needed to process later science seams like a fun and interesitng idea.
Edit: no offense is meant, but the idea of OP to have 120 labs per one second of consumption for just grey science is just ridiculous, you would end up in having like third of the base to have only labs to process science
- To produce 90 science per minute, which find decently sized base takes up 8.4 of tier 3 assemblers for yellow and purple science and 14.4 assemblers for blue science
https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.htm ... lSv37zAQ==
- To consume 90 science per minute it takes 25.71 labs without any modules and 36.73 labs with productivity modules (any tier) with max lab research speed
https://codepen.io/Tickthokk/full/NBbKPZ/
I would argue that the number of labs seems to be already quite high compared to number of assemblers needed to craft the science and to just need more seems really unnecessary
The point about power consumption seems quite accurate though, 250% research speed should probably cause 250% increased drain, however in the endgame one should have big enough power supply and I would call it a minor concern - for example difference for 36 labs would be 5400kW
To have the amount of power for labs to be way bigger than that seems to me also unnecessary. Also it would be quite annoying when you would try to build a megabase because there is already mechanic that is causing a lot of energy consumption and that are beacons with modules - they eat insane amount of energy.
However to have more tiers of labs which could be more expensive and more power hungry and needed to process later science seams like a fun and interesitng idea.
Edit: no offense is meant, but the idea of OP to have 120 labs per one second of consumption for just grey science is just ridiculous, you would end up in having like third of the base to have only labs to process science
Re: Later science should be much harder to process
no offence taken Phil, but i usually build only to rocket launch, so the 'modules' power drain is not significant for me.
My point is that, once I have built Uranium processing and a 6x reactor .... power is done. I can build my lab complex at green science and not touch it after that. So, just as in real life, tech development should take longer and be more power hungry as the tech develops .... that would help fix the late game (to rock launch) progression. I am happy to hear other ideas.
My point is that, once I have built Uranium processing and a 6x reactor .... power is done. I can build my lab complex at green science and not touch it after that. So, just as in real life, tech development should take longer and be more power hungry as the tech develops .... that would help fix the late game (to rock launch) progression. I am happy to hear other ideas.